Celebrating Clara Barton

National Capital Region’s Regional Administrator, Julia E. Hudson, recently partnered with GSA’s Central Office Public Building Service (PBS) and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine at an historic event in Washington, D.C. on April 12, 2012.

Regional Administrator Hudson spoke at the event and highlighted the importance of a new public-partnership between GSA and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine to help establish a Clara Barton Office of Missing Soldier’s Museum.

The event also commemorated the 100th Anniversary of Clara Barton’s death by celebrating this new public- partnership.

Clarissa Harlowe “Clara” Barton, the U.S. Founder of the American Red Cross, committed her life to saving the lives of troops in the Civil War. For four years, she supervised the Federal effort to search for missing soldiers and later conceived and headed the Office of the Missing Soldiers to help families locate unaccounted loved ones that served in the war.

Her 1869 report documented the fate of about 20,000 missing soldiers, about one-tenth the total number of missing or unidentified. The Missing Soldier’s office, based in Washington, D.C. was dedicated to reuniting thousands of soldiers with their families.

The GSA NCR team worked closely with stakeholders to form a collective partnership that provided an amazing opportunity to showcase this unique story. Now, the National Museum of Missing Soldiers, operated by the National Museum of Civil War Medicine will operate the museum focusing on Clara Barton’s life and work in Washington, D.C.’s Seventh Street, N.W., office spaces.